Accenture plans to cut 19,000 of its workforce worldwide

The Dublin-based consulting firm, Accenture, has announced that there will be headcount cuts for 19,000 jobs or 2.5% of its workforce worldwide over the next 18 months. These roles will be from IT, HR, finance, and marketing.

“Our record bookings reflect the confidence and trust that our clients have in us to create value and help them transform at speed. We are also taking steps to lower our costs in fiscal year 2024 and beyond while continuing to invest in our business and our people to capture the significant growth opportunities ahead.” said by Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet.

Accenture stated in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it anticipates spending $1.5 billion on expenditures associated with the downsizing, of which $1.2 billion are directly associated with the layoffs.

Sweet has also said, “We’ve been dealing with the challenges of compounding wage inflation. We’ve been doing that with pricing, but we’ve also been doing that with cost efficiencies and digitisation and we’ve identified an opportunity to go after structural cost.”

According to Accenture’s most recent annual report, they have employed 721,000 people in 2022.